Departures
by Pontificator
Summary: [oneshot] The day of Kakashi's funeral is the first day Sakura sees both her boys crying.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Naruto_.

* * *

The day of Kakashi's funeral is the first day Sakura sees both her boys crying.

(It will not be the last.)

Naruto had clenched his fist and shamelessly let tears streak across his face. Sasuke had blinked a bit more than could be blamed on springtime allergies and attempted to dry the wetness with a surreptitious swipe of his sleeve.

(There had been no stifled sobs or heavy breaths. Not even from Sakura.)

The funeral, ironically, had been delayed and postponed for weeks, until Kakashi's body had become less a corpse than a dried husk of a memory.

(But then, all they had known of their teacher _is_ from a memory. Throughout these years, all they've had was a vague mental model of who he was supposed to be.)

Sakura had been the only impassive figure in a sea of mourners. She had thought of how Kakashi had been a terrible teacher, a terrible leader, a terrible person.

(It hadn't been hard for her.)

She waits until after they drop him deep into his grave, after they pile the earth of a new year onto his casket. She waits until after everyone has left to forget about that silly, strange man who got himself killed saving some traitor to the village.

(It doesn't matter that that traitor is now the village savior.)

She waits until after the sun has set and the moon has risen and after the stars have shone and dimmed and then—and then she drops to her knees and buries her hands in that loamy earth and razes his field with the salt of her tears.

-----

The day after Sakura watches her second teammate burn up in a conflagration of honor and love is the first day she sees Sasuke break down.

(It is also the last.)

He had panted in harsh, wracking sobs, held back agonized curses and instead _writhed_, welcoming the smell of burnt flesh as his hands scratched into charred soil too close to the bonfire.

(Sakura had nursed his singed fingertips later. They never fully healed.)

It had been a loud funeral, an outpouring of sorrow and yet a celebration of the life of the Sixth.

(Perhaps this was why Sasuke was so distraught, Sakura had mused distantly. To him, deaths were vengeful, hateful things shrouded in dark and kept there, not an excuse for the village to get ridiculously drunk and ramble on about the good deeds of their now dead Hokage.)

Sakura had bitten her lip to prevent a girlish wail and squinted fiercely to stem the tears. She had told herself that the days of being emotional were long gone, lost in all the misery of adolescence. She had concentrated instead on Sasuke, and in a removed, resigned manner, had felt a tinge of jealousy that Sasuke had never—would never—show such feeling toward her.

(It is true that he had told her the year before that he loved her, but for Sasuke, love is something much like a trusting bond—comfortable, safe, and familiar. Sakura is certain he feels secure with her. Sakura is also certain that the fire in him belongs to Naruto.)

She hides until all the villagers have left—until Sasuke has dragged himself off the ground and limps home—and sits under a tree, looking at leaves and counting their number.

(She finds some neatly split in two, others with veins like the pattern of lightning, and one cracked into a thousand pieces too little to finger.)

It isn't until the clouds begin to burst under the weight of their freakish summer load that Sakura joins in, heart grieving in rhythm to the crashing thunder.

-----

The day Sasuke dies, Sakura swears she can feel her heart begin to wither.

(He is a broken, worn doll on sheets cold and bare as his face, and her heart crumples around the edges first, like a plant without water.)

She had cried a bit, eyes filling hotly and breath coming in compulsive jerks, throat strained and unable to make a sound other than inarticulate gasps.

(The leaking had stopped by the time she heard rapid footsteps on the stairs.)

There had been three people at the memorial service: two children and their mother, duty-bound and respectful to the last. The mother had been silent, eyes downcast while her children fidgeted. They had wept cool, perfunctory tears, old enough at seven and eight to feign distress. Only their sniffs caused by the chill of fall had been real.

(Sakura had not appeared. She had left this task to Hinata, who had felt obligated to say goodbye to the teammate of her late husband. Sakura had found it amusing that it would be Sasuke's tacit rival to pay him tribute at his funeral.)

Sakura had left the village the dawn of the funeral, disappearing into the forest without a trace and without a note.

(She hadn't thought it necessary to leave a trail in a village of ninjas. Besides, it doesn't matter if she is eventually found.)

First she walks up a tree while reading a book, upside-down and short hair reaching for the undergrowth. Then she walks across water, a faint plop with each footfall as she steadies herself after each breath of flame. Finally, she sets her forehead-protector above her weary eyes and walks to the border of the Fire Country.

(There is a waterfall, statues of the first two Hokages, and a river that marks the line between this life and the next.)

Sakura makes her way to the edge of the precipice where the water rushes to a sudden drop. She can see the hard curve of the water as it bends and plummets to a roaring end.

(As she rings something hard and metal around her wrists, it occurs to her that Kakashi had been alone, too. But then, she has never been as strong as he.)

Sakura sends all the chakra to her feet and dives into the blue froth below.

-----

They find her body a month later in winter, partially decomposed and curled up on the far bank. There is a smile on what is left of her pretty face and three forehead-protectors gleam brightly in her hands.


End file.
